At the end of Game 13, the party reached Embrun Grove, the last Tolland Wood waypoint they knew before Shear Pass. Now, Bruhl said there is or was a flagstone path from the wood to the pass, and they'd have to just head west and hope to hit it.
The party headed west and did find the flagstone path. Traveling on the path until midday a few days later, they saw:
On the ground off the road but nearby, you see a red insect about an inch long crawling out of the ground, struggling to do so. It has a narrow forebody with six black legs, and a more bulbous rear section. It climbs a few feet up a tree's trunk, then seems to attach itself there, and then moult. Its skin breaks apart and a silver bug emerges, like the bug that attacked Beowolf before. The red shell left behind is kind of creepy, it's a skin shell that looks like a complete dead insect, with its own legs and all.
The bug flew into the air, landed on one of the party and bit them. They killed it, but they saw three more moulting and three more flying. They killed these others as quickly as they could. But then:
You're alarmed to see that, although it's midday, it's suddenly becoming quite dark. Looking through the forest canopy, you can see a huge silver, glittering cloud of bugs filling the air above the canopy, blocking the sun. And then you see, the space between the trees and the path you're on is quickly becoming filled by a huge swarm - shall we say brood, of the bugs, coming this way.
As the the party stood shocked, a wolf blasted across the flagstone path, running from the brood. The wolf seemed to know where it was going, and Kasskar shouted to the party to follow it. The wolf and party ran past a large, 100 foot by 100 foot burial mound, then down a hole in the ground.
In the hole, they found themselves in a seven-foot-high tunnel. They wolf ran through a door at the end of the tunnel, which then closed on the party. They rushed to the door and tried to open it, but someone on the other side was holding it closed. Beowolf used his full barbarian might to blast the door open, and they went inside.
When they get through the door, they find there's little light inside - just a few smoldering embers in a stone box on the far wall of the room. You can stand upright, but the ceiling is just a little above your head, and it seems to be made of several huge granite slabs laid like planks across the ground above. You can see the room is rounded, with the walls made of stacked, irregular, flat stones all around. It's maybe 20 x 20 feet.
Now you see that it was a troll who was blocking the door against you. He was thrown back when you forced the door, and is sprawled on his back in the middle of the room, looking angry and alarmed. There are two other alarmed trolls coming into this room from a far door. The wolf that you followed in is also here, growling at you, and a line of fur is standing up on his back from his head down to his tail.
The trolls - Haugr, Gudmund, and Oddr - had these stats and the additional powers Trumpeting Roar, Animal Rage, and Athletic Grace.
The wolf had these stats and the additional power Raised Hackles.
The party beat the trolls, and Ord and Kasskar took the Asmund House Shield and the Mound Dagger from Haugr and Gudmund, respectively.
With the trolls beaten, they were able to look a little more closely at the trolls' home.
The space has stone beds with hides and furs for padding. There are a few tools here, like shovels, some rope. There are some non-utilitarian things here, like beads, a beaten-looking but functioning squeezebox accordion. One of the trolls seems to have been working on something aesthetic, a stone ball with bulbous extensions and swirls.
One of the rooms seems to have some crude plumbing and what might be a (non-flush) toilet that used it. But, you don't see any evidence right away that it was used as such by the trolls.
Leaving the trolls' home, the party found that the Silvermote brood had passed, leaving moulted shells everywhere on the trees and ground.
They turned their attention to the burial mound they had passed while following the wolf. Entering the mound through a low door, they found an arched room with a well-preserved human body. Although the body seemed to have been stripped of any weapons or armor it might have had, Aeris detected two magic items on the body.
The party returned to the flagstone path to Shear Pass, which soon led them into the mountains and began to rise quickly. Ultimately they reached the pass, and were surprised to find that it was more than just a simple dirt path over the mountains.
They follow it for quite a while - it becomes narrow stairs in many places. After several hours of traveling on this trail, they're able to see a tower rising above the cliffside above them, and soon after that, they turn a corner on the path and the path widens into a wide beautifully carved stair...actually a sequence of beautifully carved stairs. At the top, there's a kind of fort complex that the tower is a part of. It looks like the complex actually guards the way through the mountain.
Inside the complex, they found the Admiralty warrior Reinhardt and his men. They were derelict and fey, seeking oblivion, and mingling with vampire-like animals from the plane Murnen, the necaratu.
There is a hardened man, but sedate when you see him, named Reinhardt. He's an apparent poet-warrior. He's with his men, who are lounging and maybe inebriated, eating a red fruit.
There are also necaratu around, apparently afraid of or subservient to Reinhardt; even in their oblivion, Reinhardt and his men don't seem to be afraid of the necaratu. However, even sedated, Reinhardt is perceptive and can give advice on different topics.
He recognizes the Asmund House shield that Ord is carrying, and gives the characters a little information about Mound Clan.
He recognizes Beowolf as an Inkeri, he says by the smell of Hilde on the party, and stares hard at him. He says as an Inkeri he knows that Hilde is an inhuman place, the hell towns, the nonsensical dream happenings, the abominations, eye of the storm, Highpyre - the last defense against abomination - destroyed. And, where is the Star that once lit Highpyre, a symbol of holdout against death there?
He can also answer their questions about the Pass complex and the necaratu there - how the pass was built where the earth touched the sky - actually a portal to the necaratu's plane of evil in the sky above the tower - like an Apogee but to that one specific plane.
When the party told Reinhardt that they were hoping to cross the pass into Renhannes, he offered to send one of his men, Stapleton, with them through the complex as far as he knew.
The characters went to fourth level after this game.
